Donna Gilmont

February 2017

For close to 35 years, (from 1977-2011), my husband and I lived in three Third World countries as well as several less-than-ideal U.S. cities. After political unrest in 2008 in two locations (Damascus, Syria and Jakarta, Indonesia, which resulted in evacuations, we were finally transferred to Perth Australia. I was ready to explore my new home.

A year later, I was 56 and in the best shape of my life. We had been in Perth for a year, traveling, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, and getting to know this beautiful continent. I was also enjoying quilting with my new Australian friends. 

Everything changed in a snap. I woke up one night with pain in my jaw. I had read years before that women experience pain in the jaw as a sign of a heart attack, so I got up and took a baby aspirin. The following day, while walking the dogs, I felt very breathless and weak. I called my general practitioner (GP) who got me in right away. I was on penicillin, to treat strep throat, and I thought I was having a reaction to the penicillin. 

The results of an EKG were not normal so a blood test was ordered to see what was going on with my heart. I was still thinking that this was all a reaction to penicillin. The doctor called back about two hours later saying I needed to get to the emergency room right away…it was my heart.  I called my friend Eileen to drive me to the hospital, not feeling any urgency.  Eileen was on her way when my GP called telling me to call an ambulance!

I arrived at the public hospital and waited and waited because Perth was having a flu outbreak. In the emergency room, I found that the blood test showed a change in my enzyme level in the heart muscle meaning that the heart muscle was damaged in some way. I was given blood thinning medicines, given a CT scan, plus an x-ray. I waited hour after hour, some 27 hours in total. I never did get a room. During my night in the ER, I was surrounded by inebriated Aussies who had partied their way into the ER.

I finally talked with an ER doctor who said it wasn’t my heart but my lung that was causing the heart problem. I was now a respiratory patient not a heart patient.  All the beds were full in the respiratory ward because of the flu outbreak. I spent an unbelievable night being shuttled from room to room to hallway until morning.

In the morning, I saw a respiratory doctor who said the right lung pleura, which is the lining of the lung, was full of fluid. That fluid had pressed on the heart muscle, decreasing the enzyme levels, causing the heart attack symptoms. They needed to drain my pleura before I could leave. 

Australia has socialized medicine. I was in a public hospital and knew that our insurance would cover one of the private hospitals in town. At one time, I asked to be moved to a private hospital but never heard back.

I was taken upstairs to have my pleura drained. They drained two (!) liters of fluid.  Let me tell you — that’s a LOT of fluid!  I learned afterwards (after getting sick and passing out) that this procedure was done in a very crude manner. I was finally sent home with very few of my questions answered. Remember, I was still thinking that this had to do with the reaction to penicillin.

On Monday morning, I had my appointment to hear the test results of the fluid from my pleura. I asked my friend Eileen (a breast cancer survivor) to go with me to take notes. I was put through the normal respiratory tests.  Finally, in the doctor’s office, I asked about the fluid results. He didn’t have them in my file, he got up to find them, came back and said “this is bad, this is really bad, there is cancer from a “gynecological origin.”  That is how I learned I had cancer. I was eventually admitted to a private hospital where all my treatments were done in a very professional manner.

I had yet to learn if it was breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or uterine cancer. I needed additional testing as well as an angiogram to make sure my heart was fine. Right away, thanks to Eileen, I immediately booked an appointment with her oncologist. He was great. He very calmly and compassionately told my husband and me that I had Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer.  It was Stage 4 because the tumor had metastasized from the original site in my ovary to my pleura, creating all the fluid there. 

I began neoadjuvant chemotherapy (chemo prior to surgery) right away with four rounds of paclitaxel and carboplatin. I then had my debulking surgery which of course included a complete hysterectomy. This was followed by four more rounds of chemo. The process from diagnosis to completion of my chemotherapy took approximately eight months.  When I was finished with the final chemo, we were back traveling in Australia including swimming with the whale sharks.

My first recurrence occurred nine months later with fluid in the pleura again. At this point, my husband and I decided we would take early retirement so that we could move back to Portland, Oregon to be closer to family and friends as I went through treatment again. I see a local gynecologic oncologist, who guides me through my cancer journey.

In January 2016, I started the International Girls Quilt Group, IGQ for short. I asked some of my crafty friends if they’d like to learn to quilt and make quilts for women with cancer. I had six willing participants. We started out with the basics — some didn’t even know how to thread a needle! We made our first quilt in one month’s time and have made some 20 quilts since. 

Another part of the IGQ, from Perth, Australia, (that’s the “international” in IGQ) has already donated 60 or so quilts! In January 2017, we started our second year of quilting together. 

I am currently going through my fourth recurrence.  The quilting, and donation of the quilts, helps me focus on the beauty of the quilts, not on my own cancer.

The reason I want to share my story with you is that my journey (both geographic and medical) is quite different from what other women typically go through.  It’s important to know that there are so many ways that cancer can occur, and to pay attention when your body is behaving in ways that it usually doesn’t.